Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Microbus drivers launch strike after police kills co-worker

Scores of microbus drivers began striking
in Cairo’s Maadi district early Monday morning in protest over the fatal
shooting of a fellow driver by police earlier in the day.

The strike left throngs of commuters stranded in several parts of Maadi, particularly Al-Arab and Street Seven neighborhoods.

A
driver participating in the strike, speaking on condition of anonymity,
told Mada Masr that the microbus driver was killed after a minor
collision with a police vehicle under a bridge on the ring road in
Maadi’s Saqr Qureish neighborhood. They quarreled, and then the officer
took out his weapon and shot the microbus driver in the head, his
colleague reported.

The Ministry of Interior presented a slightly different account of the event in a statement on Monday, asserting
that a member of the Basateen Police Station, who had been called to
resolve the quarrel, accidentally killed the driver. Upon arriving
at the scene, he reportedly responded by "firing a warning shot in the
air from the gun in his possession, which resulted in the accidental
death of the driver."

Another striking driver, also speaking on
condition of anonymity, identified the deceased driver as a 20-year-old
from Beni Suef, known by the nickname “Gamal Julia.” The Ministry of
Interior’s statement identified him as “Gamal,” with the initials
“N.T.” Other striking drivers stated that their deceased colleague had
been married for just under a month.

Despite the microbus strike,
taxis and public buses continued to operate on Monday, prompting several
drivers to form roadblocks to impede traffic. In some instances,
striking drivers threatened other drivers who were not taking part in
the collective action.

The fatality in Maadi is the latest in a
string of similar incidents in which police have killed unarmed
civilians in recent months.

According to the Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence of Violence and Torture’s July report, 40 people across the country have died as a result of police brutality this year.

In mid-August, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi introduced amendments to provisions of the police authority law,
after Parliament approved the legislation earlier in the month. The
amendments impose greater restrictions on the police's use of force and
firearms in incidents which do not warrant such a response.

The
amendments also mandated that police personnel should not be in constant
possession of state-issued firearms, stipulating that they submit their
weapons to storage facilities designated by their presiding officers at
the conclusion of each shift, except in cases where a presiding officer
or authority judges that it is necessary to maintain possession.